For the University of Evansville’s third annual Ethics Lecture, Melissa Snarr, associate dean and associate professor of ethics and society at Vanderbilt Divinity School, will present “Jesus was a Low Wage Worker: Religious Activism for Living Wages.”

Snarr will speak at 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, April 3 in Vectren Lecture Hall (Room 100, Koch Center for Engineering and Science). Her lecture is free and open to the public.

In 1994, a coalition of Baltimore churches initiated a campaign that would change the face of worker justice organizing in the United States. Since then, over 150 cities have passed living wage ordinances in an effort to counter the growing phenomenon of “working poverty.”

“Religious activists have offered important resources to this successful movement through their ethical framing, racial bridge-building, and ritualized protests,” Snarr said. “This lecture will explore lessons — both positive and negative — from the activism of people of faith in the movement.”

Snarr focuses her work on the intersection of religion, social change, and political ethics. Her most recent book, All You That Labor: Religion and Ethics in the Living Wage Movement (NYU Press, 2011), draws on extensive participant observation to analyze and evaluate the contributions of religious activists in the living wage movement. Snarr is also the author of Social Selves and Political Reforms (Continuum, 2007) and several articles in the area of feminist ethics. Her current research projects center on Protestant resources for unionization, as well as an analysis of interfaith organizing as a peace-building practice.

The Ethics Lecture Series, sponsored by UE’s Department of Philosophy and Religion, brings ethicists from both religious and philosophical backgrounds to explore questions of value, justice, responsibility, and meaning in the realm of human conduct and the moral life.

“Lecturers examine significant ethical issues in the contemporary world and ways in which moral reflection might be brought to bear on them,” said Dianne Oliver, chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion and associate professor of religion. “The series is intended to bring focus to the study and practice of ethics among our students and the larger community.”

Previous Ethics Lecture topics have included ethical eating and ethical considerations of faith and politics.

EPD Activity Report March 26, 2012

Rose is a 1 ½-year-old, spayed DSH. She is all four declawed. Rose is a super sweet girl who loves to play. She would really love to have the company of another cat. She will do quite well in a home with older children as she can be a bit rough at times. Her favorite thing is watching out the window so her new home needs plenty of them. For more information on Rose and how to make her a part of your family, visit www.vhslifesaver.org or call (812) 426-2563.

Mayor Lloyd Winnecke will deliver his first State of the City address on Tuesday, March 27, at noon at the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Coliseum, 300 Court Street, during the monthly meeting of the Downtown Evansville Rotary Club.

Following his speech to the Rotary Club, Mayor Winnecke will visit the Koch Family Children’s Museum of Evansville (cMOE), 22 S.E. Fifth Street, at 1 p.m. for a Bicentennial Birthday Party and Cake Cutting Ceremony. He will be joined by former Evansville Mayor’s Jonathan Weinzapfel, Russell Lloyd, Jr., Frank McDonald, II, and Michael Vandeveer.

The Bicentennial events will continue at 4:30 p.m. with the official Evansville Bicentennial Birthday Celebration at the Old Post Office Building, 101 N.W. First Street. At approximately 5:30 p.m., Mayor Winnecke will read a proclamation commemorating Evansville’s 200th birthday on March 27, 2012.

After graduating from Innovation Pointe, a small business incubator managed by the Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville, AnalyCIS now has their own location at 5200 Washington Avenue where they employ nine people.

With its name being a combination of “analysis” and “Computer Information Systems (CIS),” their mission is “to provide agile, customer centric, platform/vendor neutral, and effective professional technology answers for the modern user.”

The Limited Liability Company is owned and managed by Martin E. Richey. His credentials include a MS in Computer Information Systems from Missouri State University; a Post Baccalaureate Certificate of Computer Information Systems from the University of Southern Indiana; and a Baccalaureate of Liberal Arts from Ambassador University. He has extensive technical experience as a network engineer, programmer, technical project manager, and professor. After holding several senior management positions, Marty is passionate about making advanced technology accessible to users.

AnalyCIS has many local customers in several states, including for profit customers, as well as non‐profit state, county, and city governments. Recently, AnalyCIS was awarded a defense contract with the United States Navy.

The Evansville City Council took an unprecedented step in voting to provide a $4.8 Million loan to a start up company from Houston, TX to manufacture a gas pressure step down device that they have a license for in the old Whirlpool Building. The City will also be covering two years rent for Earthcare.

The hotly contested vote was taken after a vote to forcefully extract the bill from the Finance Committee whose chairman Councilman John Friend was opposed to going forward due to the fact that many of the questions asked regarding the financial plan had not been answered and because no real world technical testing was presented.

Ken Haney of Earthcare testified before the council that he had orders from all over the world coming in and that they are on the cusp of getting a multi-billion deal in New York. No details of any orders were submitted. Mr. Haney also testified that Earthcare had been turned down for loans at 6 or 7 banks but provided no documentation with respect to why.

Councilman Conor O’Daniel voted to support the loan after giving every indication that he was against doing so and asking many articulate questions for which no answers were offered.

Other Council members voting for the loan package were President Connie Robinson, Councilwoman Missy Mosby, Councilman Johnathan Weaver, and Councilman H. Dan Adams who has an MBA from Washington University.

Council members Dan McGinn, Stephanie Brinkerhoff-Riley, John Friend, and Al Lindsey all voted against the loan. And so begins the saga of the City of Evansville’s foray into the world of investment banking. The $4.8 Million loan has no collateral associated with it.

Excerpt from Evansville City Council Meeting in 2004:

MISCELLANEOUS BUSINESS

Vice President Watts: Is there anything under Miscellaneous Business? Councilman Melcher.

Councilman Melcher: Last week, about Tuesday or so, I was getting two or three phone calls about Roundy’s and I guess it came out in the paper Friday, I guess this is something I’ve talked about over and over and over when we get tax abatements that we’ve never had anything on there where if they would get out before the tax abatement is over that they owe the citizens of our community something. I don’t know what we can do. I’m going to try to look into that a little more now because this is the third company that has done this to us. You remember we had Hudson Valley Trees and I thought we had Shelf Staple Foods or something that did the same thing. Well Roundy’s is leaving and we feel we did everything we could to keep them which I think worked. I can’t project what their sales and that, so I asked DMD if they would get me, because I couldn’t remember the year, but they got a ten-year tax abatement and they are in their sixth year. So as you know the way a ten-year tax abatement goes, they only pay roughly 10 percent the first year and 23 percent the second year, so they have gotten by real well now and maybe where they are going they are getting a better deal and they’re going to get another tax abatement. We’re going to have a lot of workers out of work, and I just think it’s something that we need to be constantly looking at. We’re all for economic development. We want to help. I’m glad we’ve got the point system, but even when we have a deal of tax abatement or tax phase-in as we call it now, is so everybody works out. We get a business, we get people working, and we’re all investing back into the community, and we’re willing to give up a little bit because we know that down the road we’re going to get more out of it. So it’s kind of like a marriage and now we’re getting divorced I guess and moving on. They also got airport development zone credits with the State, and I don’t know how the State is going to handle that. It seems like they took all the incentives because you know the first five or six years is where the bulk of it is and now they’re leaving. And I think that is kind of a shame of them doing that and maybe they had to financially. I can’t speak for that, but there ought to be something built in somewhere in our tax phase-in if something like this happens. I even talked about one time that they put a bond up or something during this tax phase-in and it goes down every year for a certain time. I just wanted to get that on the record tonight that we’re for economic development but we need because this might be happening more and more since outsourcing seems to be the way the Federal Government wants to take it, so I think that’s something we need to look at and I just wanted to get it on the record this evening. Thank you.

Councilman Kniese: Steve, I think it would be interesting to find out how many companies over the “x” number of years have received tax phase-in and how many have left and how many are still here. I think that would be interesting to see what kind of success ratio would be associated with that program.

Councilman Melcher: That’s not a bad idea. The one thing I think we did with Shelf Staple Foods, we even loaned them some money. I really think we had a hard time getting it back, but I think we did. But it’s really tough when you are in business I know.

Councilman Kiefer: Mr. President. John, I have a question in regards to what Steve is saying. I think he makes a very valid point. Is there, can we legally, uh could we do something by ordinance that said that either they would post a bond to cover that diminishes as time passes or maybe we could even place, like in this case, they’re selling their property, maybe we have a lien on to the property if something like that.

Councilman Melcher: I don’t think there is anything you can do now.

Councilman Kiefer: I mean, I don’t think now, but I’m saying in the future could, would we have the ability to do that or is that something that has to go through the State Legislature?

Counsel Hamilton: It’s completely spelled out by the State Acts so I think it would have to be amended at that level. I could look into that….

Councilman Kiefer: Well, that would be worth checking into, because I think he’s made a very valid point on that.

Counsel Hamilton: The State spells out the requirements and gives you parameters that you have to live in between. But I’ll look at it.

Councilman Kiefer: Okay. Madam Clerk, were you able to contact anybody about doing a presentation on the efficiency study to the City Council?

Clerk Matlock: I’ll make a note to myself.